Nokia's VP of Communications Susan Sheehan made an amusing stumble, commenting at the opening of the press conference that the Lumia lineup was "Nokia's entry... (stutter) reentry into the wireless market in North America."

But to be honest the first statement was probably the most accurate -- Nokia hasn't been relevant in the North American market since the days when there wasn't much of a market.

Nokia kicked off the conference with old news. The Nokia 710 was launching on Deutsche Telekom AG's (ETR:DTE) T-Mobile USA, America's fourth largest mobile carrier, on January 11. Priced at $50, Nokia pitches that the phone, "Brings an unparalleled combinations of quality and price to the American market."

The Nokia Lumia 900 follows the chic Android cliche of "supersizing and 4G". It essentially takes the Nokia 800, bumps the screen size to 4.3 inches, and adds an LTE modem, plus a beefy 1830 mAh battery to support the new blazing but hungry communications chip. As we mentioned over the weekend, a 1.4GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and 16GB of storage space is in the mix as well. The screen also saves power via circular polarizing display tech., branded as Nokia's "Clear Black" feature.

New Nokia CEO -- and ex-Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) camera employee (and "Trojan horse" according to some) -- Stephen Elop cheered the device. He comments, "We believe that the industry has shifted from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems...[The Nokia 900 is] a smartphone designed and delivered specifically with the North American consumer in mind...[It is] the first real Windows Phone built for and designed for the North American market."

A couple of other pertinent tidbits were tossed out by Mr. Elop. The new phone will use Nokia's proprietary injection-molded polycarbonate casing to deliver black and cyan Lumia 900s whose "color is inherently innate to the material, not cheaply painted on the outside."

The phones will also have some pretty nice optics. On the rear is a F2.2 wide angle lens, with dual aspect ratio support. On the front is a F2.4 lens, which Nokia seemed particularly proud of. The company brags, "The front camera of the Nokia 900 let's in as much light as the back camera of nearly of nearly every other smartphone out there."

The phone will be carried by AT&T, Inc. (T). In a bit of fan service to tech news fans everywhere, Nokia managed to squeeze Stephen Elop, Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer, and AT&T President Ralph de la Vega all on one stage.

III. Nokia's Big Lumia 900 Suffers From Soft Launch

Sadly, the launch was very soft, with many of the most criticial deals left unsaid. Price was not discussed other than Mr. Elop's nebulous assurance that it would "aggressive. " The launch time was stated as "in coming months" (about as ambiguous a phrase as you could think up).

Mr. Elop says part of the challenge of selling consumers on Windows Phones is explaining to them that the fastest CPU does not necessarily mean the best performance. He comments, "Quad-core doesn't mean quad-performance or quad-user experience."

Of course it's hard to sell a product that doesn't exist yet, so Nokia better move aggressively to drop its Lumia 900 on the American market ASAP, particularly with HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) preparing to drop its own HD, LTE Windows Phone -- the HTC Titan 2.